[Pkg-octave-devel] octave2.1 and octave2.9 in unstable

[Rafael Laboissiere]

Packages octave2.1*_2.1.72-1 and octave2.9*_2.9.4-1 have been uploaded to
unstable today.  I worked quite hard during the last weekend to get both
set of packages not conflicting with each other.

The trickiest part was getting the *-info packages in harmony.  I had to
online-patch the *.texi files by changing the @setfilename macro
argument.  Besides that, the right info files should be called when
running "help -i".

For now, the octave2.1 packages have higher priority than the octave2.9
ones through the alternatives system.  If a user has both versions
installed and has not manually changed the alternatives, then "octave" is
a synonym to "octave-2.1.72".  To launch octave2.9, the user must type
"octave-2.9.4".

The octave2.9 package has a RC bug (#310226, severity: serious) filed
against it.  I am afraid the package will not stay very long in unstable
due to the severity level of the said bug.  One possible solution is to
downgrade its level to "important".  Another solution is to disable, if
possible, the use of the glpk library at build time.  At any rate, I
already sent a patch to the maintainer of glpk to allow building shared
libraries for glpk (http://bugs.debian.org/335237).  There has been no
much progress on this front, though.  Please, comments are welcome.

Go and use octave2.9, spotting for bugs in the package.  Advertisements
are welcome.  If someone could drop a note in help at octave.org, I would be
very grateful.

Getting tired now,

-- 
Rafael